A BEHIND-THE-SCENES STRUGGLE

There has been another sharp turn in Armenia's domestic politics. The vodka oligarch, head of the Prosperous Armenia Party [PAP], Gagik Tsarukyan, who had up till now been regarded as a figure who was an extremely loyal to Serzh Sargsyan, has decided to go over to the real opposition. He came out with an extremely scathing statement in which he mentioned the economic instability, the murder of the Avetisyan family in Gyumri and the tension along the border. He said that the authorities were to blame for all of these things and added that, if the authorities did not meet the demands of the people, the people would force the authorities to call early elections.

Shortly afterwards, Artak Khachatryan, a member of the political council of the "Prosperous Armenia" Party and an active participant in the protest demonstration against the amendments to the law "On tax on turnover" was kidnapped by three unidentified persons wearing masks. Then the activist was found beaten up and covered in blood outside the doors of his flat.

The political council of the PAP came out with a special statement: "We assess this as an insolent and cynical challenge to the political forces and society. It is obvious that the entire responsibility for what has happened lies with the political authorities. We consider the country's top political authorities, which bear personal responsibility, to be mainly to blame for the gangster milieu that has taken shape in the country. Instead of resolving the problems that have built up, of confronting the extremely serious challenges facing the state and the people and ensuring an atmosphere of solidarity within the country, the political authorities have chosen a spineless model of behaviour, of lying in wait for their opponents,  kidnapping them, striking them from behind and beating them up." In the PAP they are quite logically demanding that the crime should be exposed and they threatened that no-one should even dare to think that the act of violence perpetrated on Artak Khachatryan and other social and political activists would remain unpunished.

Prime Minister Ovik Abrahamyan, who is incidentally the father-in-law of Gagik Tsarukyan, was the first to take up "the gauntlet". Without mincing his words, the head of government stated that the oligarch Gagik Tsarukyan should personally keep an eye on the statements made by his political organisation, otherwise they would be forced to perceive these emotional ravings as his own personal point of view.

Then Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan, who has already put the" big guns" into action, waded into the debate, if one can call it that. The head of state immediately decreed that Gagik Tsarukyan should be expelled from Armenia's National Security Council. He ordered that his contacts with the world of crime should be investigated as well as the rumours about his tax evasion. At the session of his own Republican Party he referred to Tsarukyan as an evil for the country and noted that a person possessing the necessary mechanisms to take part in political processes, but of low intellect, automatically acted as a direct brake on any development. 

Sargsyan added that it was a tragedy, and in some sense a curious one, that Gagik Tsarukyan harboured big political ambitions. This was followed by an appeal by the speaker of the Armenian Parliament to the Central Electoral Commission that Tsarukyan should be deprived of his deputy's mandate. The presidential security service immediately withdrew the money, food and clothing allowances from Tsarukyan's bodyguard and stopped the guarding of his "facilities", Prime Minister Ovik  Abrahamyan relieved Gagik Tsarukyan of his appointment as chairman of the Council of the Physical Culture Institute. Tsarukyan responded by saying that the Armenian administration was an infamous and shameful page in history that needed to be closed immediately and assured them that "the language of the gutter is not for us, neither are hysterics" and ended with an appeal to try and get Serzh Sargsyan to step down "by every legal means".

Events went on to take an unexpected turn. A meeting of the Armenian president and the heads of the PAP took place with the mediation of "Dashnaktsutyun" [Armenian Revolutionary Federation]. Then, calling for a change of government in the country, Gagik Tsarukyan stated that the differences needed to be settled in a peaceful manner.

But the experts are extremely evasive about replying to the question of whether the conflict between Serzh Sargsyan and Gagik Tsarukyan really had been settled. In actual fact, such a cutting exchange of remarks could not possibly have come "from nowhere" and end in nothing. Yerevan observers remind us that Gagik Tsarukyan had gone off the beaten political track after his trip to Moscow. True, whether he managed to have talks with sufficiently influential figures there and, what is more important, enlist their support still remains unclear. And that provides food for thought and hypotheses. The authority of the current government in Armenia is currently declining catastrophically; many politicians are already making their own plans for coming to power and are quite naturally trying to drum up support among influential players, including those abroad. 

Quite recently the media were extremely vociferous in discussing the possibility of an "Armenian Maidan" or an "Armenian Tahrir", i.e. a local version of a "coloured revolution". The disappointment at the first results of trying to join the EU, the West's growing pressure on Russia and finally the tragedy in Gyumri, are all allowing the pro-Western forces, which can count among them in Armenia the "Heritage Party" and the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF) Dashnaksutyun, to score points. But the more sober politicians understand that, in actual fact, Armenia's dependence on Russia is such that the "issue of  power" will not be resolved in Yerevan, but in Moscow.  As a result, under the incumbent president, an under-the-carpet struggle is already beginning in his "inner circle", the top prize being Russia's sympathy. Today many people are seeking out influential figures in the Kremlin who are well disposed towards Armenia. Bridges are actively being built with the Russian Federation, primarily with the defence bloc; defence minister Seyran Ohanyan is having his own secret meetings with Ovik Abrahamyan…

Experts remind us that Russia is clearly staking on Armenia's former second president, Robert Kocharyan, who was formally a member of the Prosperous Armenia Party. Gagik Tsarukyan does, moreover, have extremely close ties with the quite well-known [head of the Russian President's Department for Inter-regional and Cultural Ties with Foreign Countries] Modest Kolerov, who remains an extremely influential figure in the Russian Federation.

Kocharyan does incidentally actively supported Tsarukyan in this confrontation, referring to the attacks on him as totally illegal political persecution. 

"Considering the extent of the social tension and dissatisfaction in the country, as well as the extensive popularity enjoyed by the Prosperous Armenia Party and its leader, the more energetically the administration tries to 'defend' its political patch, the greater the consolidation against the authorities will be and the more realistic the prospects of political shake-ups will be. It is the intentions of the ruling party not to act in compliance with the Constitution of Armenia and to literally force Prosperous Armenia and the opposition in general to stage mass demonstrations on the streets with unpredictable consequences. Arrests and repressive actions will drive the country into a profound and long drawn-out crisis," R. Kocharyan said.

Many people think that it is difficult for the moment to predict who will come out on top in this incipient squabble. But there can be no doubt that the losers will be the Armenia's most ordinary citizens whose interests no-one takes seriously.